The French government has included Irish-based Biotricity among 11 bioenergy developers eligible for a guaranteed renewable electricity tariff of around 13c/kW/h. The farm biomass plant is to be built in Maubourguet in the southwest of the country and will produce 50MW of power – one-third as electricity sold into the grid and two-thirds as heat for neighbouring businesses. Each year, the plant will purchase up to 150,000t of “any crop residue: straw; stems, leaves and cobs from maize; soya and rapeseed waste; and wood thinnings,” Tony Kinsella, who leads Biotricity’s French project, told the Irish Farmers Journal.The Irish company will form a joint fuel supply company with two local farmer co-ops, Euralis and Vivadour, to collect 10% of all crop biomass in a 50km radius. The co-ops will in turn purchase some of the heat for use in a foie gras factory and two grain driers next to the plant.
The French government has included Irish-based Biotricity among 11 bioenergy developers eligible for a guaranteed renewable electricity tariff of around 13c/kW/h. The farm biomass plant is to be built in Maubourguet in the southwest of the country and will produce 50MW of power – one-third as electricity sold into the grid and two-thirds as heat for neighbouring businesses. Each year, the plant will purchase up to 150,000t of “any crop residue: straw; stems, leaves and cobs from maize; soya and rapeseed waste; and wood thinnings,” Tony Kinsella, who leads Biotricity’s French project, told the Irish Farmers Journal.
The Irish company will form a joint fuel supply company with two local farmer co-ops, Euralis and Vivadour, to collect 10% of all crop biomass in a 50km radius. The co-ops will in turn purchase some of the heat for use in a foie gras factory and two grain driers next to the plant.
Kinsella said the project under preparation for six years had planning permission and permits. Biotricity now hopes to raise the last of the €100m needed for the investment in time to start construction by early 2019.
The company plans to begin construction on a similar project in Rhode, Co Offaly, this year, but has scaled it down because Ireland’s policy for the sector is “a mess”, Biotricity director Briain Smyth said. In the meantime, “we’re focusing where there is a clear and cohesive strategy for bioenergy”, he added.
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